


Kindred

by King_George_the_only



Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, Just a heads up if its a bit squicky for you, Or at least grim themes, Some adult themes, Teeny bit of gore, just a bit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-24 14:32:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4923265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/King_George_the_only/pseuds/King_George_the_only
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The creed and the colour and the name wont matter. Or will it?<br/>A woman is saved from a failing stasis pod in a long abandoned Ancient base.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

The deafening siren rang out across the destroyed base, echoing in the otherwise silent halls, falling upon only one set of ears.

A young woman struck her fingers desperately at the keys of a quickly failing computer. She let out a sigh of relief when the flickering screen showed the activation of her distress beacon.

They would know now. They would come for her. No matter how long, they would come.

She cringed as pain echoed through her battered body. The bones were resetting themselves but too slowly. Her flesh healed but still not fast enough. The blood was coagulating but nowhere near as well as her power should have been fixing her. She pushed herself from the console and ran as best she could across the base. Her almost useless leg made her hobble and slowed her travels, as did the numberless bodies lying discarded on the floor. She reached the cryo room, panting heavily. She pushed aside the fallen rubble with what little strength she had remaining and grasped desperately onto the first chamber she could. She opened the small sanctuary and, with one final look at her ruined surrounding, climbed in, awaiting her rescuers.

The power lasted only minutes until it shut down. The siren stopped its call. The beacon shut down. But the life support did not. The fail-safe had saved the only survivor of the massacre.

They wouldn't know now. But, they would come for her. No matter how long it took, her rescuers would come for her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Atlantis team finds a surprise in a long forgotten base.

As Rodney stood at the ancient console, he decided once and for all that he deeply doubted the chance of finding anything of use in the base.

When they had found the small reference in the Ancient computers to a small military research base on what is now an uninhabited planet, the Lanteans had been overcome with curiosity and covetous desire.  
The reference was vague, something about a high security, top secret facility that was supposedly charged with research into the Wraith and some sort of ‘cure’, which they hoped amounted to a great deal of research into a retrovirus for Wraith.  
With that though also came the promise of materials, such as ZPMs which were always in great demand.  
But, when they had reached the base, any hopes of anything being found quickly started to dwindle.  
It was long forgotten, that much they had expected, but when John, who was leading the little expedition, put his boot through a fragile skull, they started to realise that maybe it hadn't been abandoned as they thought, but rather fell victim to some tragedy.  
This was further proved by the millenias old scorch marks found on the walls, clear evidence of a vicious and brutal fight.  
Tensions within the exploration teams grew a little thick as they observed the carnage of a violent fall, despite the time which separated them from it.  
More and more bodies were found, the halls were almost littered with remains at some points, showing, as the military personnel pointed out, that they had died trying to form defensive choke points.  
Eventually they reached what looked to be a central control room.  
The dust and grime and bits of crumbled walls were swept aside and the scientists quickly got to work trying to reboot the computers and see what they could find.  
The computers were damaged , heavily damaged, but they were able to make sense of things and discover that there was indeed still a power source somewhere in the building.  
So while the academics stayed to attempt salvation of the computers, the military personnel set off, in search of the power, fighting their way through collapsed corridors, defensive blockades and more and more decrepit bodies.

McKay, fresh from his gloomy decision about the base, had been trying to make sense of the general system when he noticed it.  
The tablet he had interfaced with the old consoles chirped as a notification popped up and alerted him to the surges in power levels.  
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” he cried out, halting the work of everyone in the room, after all, when Rodney Mckay had a problem, so did everybody else. “Who activated these systems?” he asked the room, an accusatory glance and tone sweeping across his colleagues.  
A few glances were shared until Zelenka spoke up  
“We didn't do anything. We barely have things running here.” he gestured vaguely to the other consoles in the room which were still being interfaced.  
Mckay rolled his eyes  
“Well somebody did something because systems are rebooting themselves all over the base. We’re getting all kinds of power fluctuations.”  
The Czech sighed wearily, ever since they had entered the base Rodney had been throwing accusation after accusation at anyone he could and as usual it was growing thin.  
“I’m telling you, Rodney, we didn't do-”  
“No.” the Canadian muttered, cutting Zelenka off “No, you didn't do anything. This started the moment we got the main console working. Systems have been turning themselves on all across the base. We have intercom, life sign detectors…” he halted mid rant, frowning at the screen in his hands “What the hell’s that?”  
“What?” Zelenka asked impatiently walking over to have a look at the tablet in McKay’s hands  
“There’s a signal coming from one of the rooms.” he replied succinctly.  
He could see it now. A schematic of the base was showing on one of the tabs, little dots representing the people strewn throughout it.  
“It’s probably one of the Military guys.” he shrugged at the hypochondriac.  
“No, they're in formation, you can see them. Besides this is way off and its… different.”  
McKay was right, he thought curiously, he could clearly make out the yellow dots which represented themselves in the main room and travelling in slow formation were the yellow dots of the military… and there, just beyond them, was a pale blue dot.  
“Well, do we know what's in that room?”  
Rodney swept the tablet a few times when his furrowed brow suddenly lifted and his gaze met Zelenka’s with a look of complete shock and awe,  
“Stasis pods.”

~~~

 

Meanwhile, deeper within the decrepit base, John Sheppard was leading a team through the corridors, trying to find something that resembled a power source or anything useful for that matter.  
The chances were low that they would find any materials of great use given that the surrounding structure was so damaged by both time and conflict, yet the chance they would find something was enough to spur them on.  
At some point the lights had come on during their search but they kept fluctuating, giving John mixed feelings on finding a ZPM worth salvaging.  
At the moment they were on though, and that made journey through the corridors a little easier and changed the creepy factor in that while there was no more dark, spooky corridors, they could now pretty clearly see the bodies lying in their path and the flickering lights were straight from any B-movie.  
The bodies themselves were like husks, they looked mummified as if they had every bit of moisture sucked out of them.  
John didn't know if it was just because they had been left for so long or if it had to do with the fact that many of the bodies had their shirt opened which, in John’s opinion, screamed Wraith.  
He tried his hardest not to look at them. Every time his gaze fell to them, he was reminded of the sensation of being fed upon. The agony of it haunted him.  
Then again, he wasn’t sure if it was some throw back to being a kid and watching that one mummy movie, which he regretted for months afterward, or the general creepiness of the dried out corpses that stared up at him with their haunting faces that were frozen forever in some primal scream of horror but… Yeah, it was probably the faces.  
“John!” Rodney’s voice sprang to life in John’s ear and for once John was extremely glad of that demanding Canadian tone “You need to head down the corridor, take your first left, keep going and then go into the third room on your right.”  
John sighed wearily, just because he was glad for the interruption to his thoughts, didn’t mean he had to appreciate the tone.  
“Why, Rodney? If you’ve found the power source do you think we could fix these ligh-”  
“There’s a person in there!”  
John stood for a second, the thoughts in his head not quite working.  
“What?”  
“There’s a person in a stasis pod and systems are rebooting all across the base and if you don’t get him out of there before the life support system shuts down, he’ll die!”  
John took off running.  
His thoughts went back to finding the Alternate Elizabeth in the stasis pods in Atlantis. It could happen. People could survive. Elizabeth…  
No. She was gone. For good. This couldn't be her.  
But still, he ran like it was.  
Desiccated husks if people passing by quickly as he tore through the base, the bodies oddly out of his way as if a path had been cleared just for him.  
This person was alive. They had survived the slaughter, the carnage, the horror. They had slept amongst a nightmare for thousands of years, waiting for rescue.  
He couldn't fail them now.  
The lights were flickering above him as he neared the desired door. He swiped his hand across the door controls and they swished open.  
Then stopped.  
The failing power had shut down the door as it had only just opened up.  
John pushed himself into the slight gap desperately. The bulky kevlar around him made it that much more difficult. But adrenaline surged through him as the lights began to flicker once more, this time within the room. As he strained against the door, John threw a quick glance into the room. He quickly spied the pod he needed. It was lit up brighter than the others and he thanked God that it was the closest. Spurred on by his target within sight, John gave one final push and pull and emerged free into the room. Barely giving himself time to right his footing, he shot towards the pod, manhandling the controls to open the damn thing.  
The lights flickered once before the hall lighting shut off, followed by the rooms, leaving only the eerie glow of the pods.  
His pod was working. Something he had done worked and he recognised the process.  
Then the room got darker.  
John turned quickly, a pod furthest into the room had shut down.  
Then the one next to it.  
The breath froze in John's lungs.  
The stale air that tasted of dust and death, like metal and rot and stagnant water, surrounded him.  
He'd failed, he thought, as he watched in quiet hopelessness as each pod slowly shut off.  
A hissing noise behind him partially broke him from his desperation and as he turned on his heel, a body fell at him.  
Quick reflexes had John catch the body but his lack of awareness had him tumbling to the floor too. He protected the body out of instinct, falling around it.  
As he hit the floor, all light disappeared from the room.  
John lay in perfect darkness and silence, his arms wrapped carefully around the figure. He didn't dare move. Or make a sound. Or breathe.  
His body ached in anticipation, or perhaps from the fall.  
Had be been too late?  
Had he failed?  
Had he let them die?  
A warm breath caressed his neck.  
John couldn't help the relieved laugh from gracing his lips and in the darkness, he held the body a little tighter.  
They were alive.  
His quiet celebration was cut short as McKay sounded in his ear  
“Well?” Trepidation thick in his voice  
John laughed as he answered  
“I got ‘em out in time.”  
“I'll, uh, I'll send someone to radio Atlantis.”  
He nodded, not bothering to reply to McKay, instead just bawling in the victory for a second.  
“Sir?” Came another interruption, one of his team calling out for him from the corridor  
“In here.”  
In the dark, weighed down slightly by the body atop him, John stumbled for his torch. Unable to find it, he gave up when the harsh glare of another flashlight shone through the doorway  
“Sir? Are you alright?”  
John raised a hand to shield his eyes  
“I’m fine, but I think this guy could use a doctor.”  
“Um, Sir, I think that’s a girl.”  
His gaze fell to the person in his arms.  
Curled into him was indeed the unconscious form of a young woman. From his vantage point, John could make out very little. However, he noted that her features looked starved, her cheekbones harshly highlighted by her drawn cheeks. Her emaciated figure was covered in large, dirty clothes reminiscent of the styles of the Ancients.  
Her head was shorn, a thick stubble covered the top of her head, the only evidence of her pale hair.  
She looked sickly, like a shadow of a person in the harsh, bright light, but the fact was undeniable. He was a she.  
“Oh.” he murmured “Yeah.”

They hadn’t known. They hadn’t come for her. But just in time, they had rescued her.


	3. Chapter 3

Woolsey came into the room unceremoniously. It was eerily silent in the usually bustling med bay as only faint noises of the machines seemed to echo through the emptied room.  
As John had carried the unconscious body of the woman into Atlantis, a quarantine had been put in place, with only John and Carson to remain inside, given that if she were a carrier of any infectious diseases John would most likely be infected and she was in dire need of medical care. She had been stabilized and the quarantine had been relaxed however care was taken to keep her secured.  
Woolsey approached the chief medical officer of Atlantis,  
“How’s our guest?” he spoke softly.  
“Still unconscious, but she’s doing well, all things considered.” with his mouth set in a grim smile, Carson’s gaze matched Woolsey’s before it fell back on the girl. She had been cleaned up and put into some scrubs. Lying in the hospital bed though, she looked tiny. Her build seemed frail and his heart bled for the girl. “We have a couple of drips in her to help with dehydration but she’ll have a shocking headache when she does wake up. She appears to have broken her leg quite badly and due to the stasis pod, it hadn't quite had time to heal. I've set it properly now though so there shouldn't be a problem. Especially with how fast she’s been healing since we got those IV’s in her anyway.”  
The doctor had wondered at her healing capabilities ever since they became apparent.  
He found it simply fascinating, the rate of her cell division was immense and only seemed to increase with the nutrients being fed into her. If there were a way to replicate this physiological process in humans... well, he wouldn't be nearly as needed.  
“Any idea how long she was in there?”  
The question broke Carson out of his thoughts,  
“I’m told the base was around during the Wraith-Lantean war. My guess is somewhere around then, and if so, she’s held up remarkably well.”  
Atlantis' leader nodded affirmatively, his eyes studying the woman.  
“Do we know for sure if she’s an Ancient?”  
Carson paused, glancing at the woman thoughtfully for a brief second. Thoughts raced through his mind before he nodded gingerly.  
“Oh, aye, she is. I tested her for any viruses or bacteria first thing. Her immune system was spotless... That pretty much gave it away.”  
A small smile graced the doctor's lips that did not quite meet his eyes.  
“Any guesses at when she’ll wake up?”  
Again Carson looked thoughtfully at the sleeping woman. He had no idea how the drugs would react within her. He hadn’t experienced her kind of physiology before and all he had done was mostly guesswork.  
“Could be now, could be days from now.” was all he could supply.  
“Thank you, Doctor.”  
The Scotsman smiled and went back to his patient, running more scans on her arm, his ministrations continuing.  
With a final pensive glance at the Ancient, Richard Woolsey turned his attention to the so far silent character sitting across the room.  
“Sheppard.” The leader of Atlantis greeted the Colonel as he neared him “I heard from the others. The systems crashed shortly after you arrived with our friend. They salvaged the power source as well as some other trinkets and should be back soon.”  
He nodded in understanding, not breaking his thoughtful silence.  
“I take it she survived something pretty horrific?”  
Images of the base flashed through Shepard’s mind. Visions of the carnage and violence long scarred into the base smattered with his own vicious memories of war and Wraith.  
“From the looks of things, I would say a lot of Wraith busted down the front door, killed everybody they could find and left.”  
"I see." Richard regarded the grim tone and visage of the Colonel. First reports of the sight had been quite bleak certainly, but the team was not prepared for the past violence to be so fresh. It worried him slightly, he worried for all those in his care, but he knew John would get past it once the girl awoke. He smiled "Well, good work. She’s alive because of you."  
John finally met his eyes, some of the darkness clearing, and nodded again before setting back onto the sleeping Ancient.  
With that, Woolsey retreated from the room, allowing the doctor space to work and John space to think and wait.  
As the doors closed behind Woolsey, and sealed the room once more, John relaxed back into the chair.  
He had been given an all clear and was free to leave at any time, but despite that and his body's urge to find its bed, John remained within the medical room.  
He couldn't quite say why but he could not leave the side of the female. So he would wait and watch. Until he felt it right to leave.

 

John awoke to a thud.  
His heart raced as the adrenaline surged around his body, instinctively ready for attack. Immediately he placed himself in a medbay in Atlantis but it wasn't until his senses zoned in on the woman across the room from him that he recalled the days events.  
She was sitting up in the bed, clearly awake, and John found himself now frozen, unaware of how to react to her and her newfound consciousness.  
Part of him wanted to call out to Carson, another wanted to greet the young woman, another yet simply wanted to watch her in curiosity, and another part of him, a more primal part of him, screamed at him to run.  
But John ignored that primal urge, common sense telling him that she was no threat. After all, she looked 100 lbs soaking wet and at present was barely sitting up in the bed, breathing heavily as if she had just woken up from a nightmare. She was swaying heavily as she held her head in her hands, making soft noises to herself.  
John thought to himself that she looked like she was about to throw up; her visage reminding him somewhat of his first hangover.  
He smiled a little at the memory.  
The girl was no threat, he thought logically, and decided he would stand, briefly call for Carson, and, in very soft tones, introduce himself.  
But she shifted with a growl and John stilled.  
Her gaze fell down to the far side of her bed and she tutted with disgust.  
John followed her gaze, his eyes finally leaving her form, and quickly realised the source of the thud that had awoken him.  
Carson was lying unconscious at the base of the bed.  
At once the military commander of Atlantis was on his feet, raising his blaster.  
The woman looked up at the sudden movement, but barely had time to think before John pulled the trigger, hitting her with a pulse of energy.  
She faltered with the hit, looking as though she were seeing stars, but she didn’t go down.  
For a split second, John was taken aback. He had set the weapon to stun but even at that power, it would usually knock a grown man clean out.  
He hit her twice more and finally she fell back onto the soft hospital bed.  
Sure that she was now once again unconscious, John rushed over to Carson.  
A quick check confirmed that Carson's pulse was strong and his breathing normal. It seemed he was just out cold, a relief for John in this twist of events.  
As Sheppard raised his hand to his comms earpiece, he couldn't help but feel the sense of trepidation that came with the thought that this girl was serious trouble.  
And that maybe he should have listened to that primal scream.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team have saved a woman from death and taken her back to Atlantis for medical care. However, upon waking she attacked the good doctor Carson.  
> What will happen next with the Ancient?
> 
> A/N that sounds so cheesy and a little clickbait-ish. Anyway. Finally updated. Hopefully the text wont get formatted to hell.

It had been just over a week since the woman had woken up and attacked Carson.  
They kept her sedated for several days, making sure she could get healed up while also supplying them with enough time to figure out what to do with her.  
In the end they elected to put her in a cell for safety's sake and she had been allowed to wake up.  
They hoped her initial attack was just a reflex of someone who was simply waking from a nightmare, who was traumatised and acting beyond their better judgement. They hoped that if she was allowed some time to settle down, if she were given some reprieve, she would be placated and return to her senses.  
They were sorely mistaken.

It had been 4 earth days since she had woken up from the sedatives.  
DB, as they had come to call her, had successfully repelled every attempt to subdue her. Times and time again she pushed them back. At first people approaching just dropped to the floor as she forced unconsciousness upon them.  
Carson had explained that this seemed to be what she had done to him. By his account, he had noticed her stirring and gone to investigate but as he reached her side, it was like his mind just shut off.  
Thankfully this left no damage other than the obvious bruising from hitting the floor as a dead weight.  
After the first two days, she started exhibiting telekinesis. People and objects were flung in waves away from her. This meant that while people weren't losing consciousness, they were now being thrown across rooms rather forcefully. The worst of the injuries included a concussion, three fractured ribs, and a broken wrist.

They had debated the use of gaseous anesthetics to knock her out but Carson had objected, citing her foreign biology. It had been dangerous enough to drug her before but he hadn't made that call. He refused to allow it to be made again.  
Carson’s attitude towards the woman infuriated John almost as much as DB herself. He took his role as her sole care provider and de facto legal guardian with an unwavering determination.  
With a weary sigh, John ran his rough hands over his face, rubbing over the rougher stubble blahdy.  
He had been awake and watching DB for nearly twenty-three hours and he was exhausted.  
As each hour had passed he grew more and more frustrated with the woman in the cells and how she rebuffed yet another team despite her apparent exhaustion.

It was this determined rebellion that annoyed John so much that also had Carson in a tizzy.  
The two men had been charged with her care in the absence of any guardians she may have once had, and the doctor was taking his role in a more fatherly fashion than John was.  
Despite the attack on him which he described as ‘not really an attack, more like she went into my head and turned my switch to off’’.  
In John (and many others) opinion, Carson was taking the whole matter far too laxly. He seemed to be distressed and was ignoring protocol, in favour of the alien woman’s defense.  
He kept repeating ‘I don't care that she isn't human, no one can go without food, water and sleep for that long without harming themselves!’.  
John admitted that he had a point but frankly, she was dangerous. He had to subdue her somehow and as far as he was concerned, her passing out from exhaustion or hunger was not off the cards.  
Hell, he was about to pass out himself.  
He was toying with calling it a night when something caught his attention from the corner of his eye.  
There were several closed loop surveillance cameras in and surrounding DB’s holding cell. The one that caught John’s attention was one within the cell. It was trained on a corner where the woman had curled up against. There was nothing unusual about that, it faced the only entrance to the room and so it was the most basic of tactical positions, but something was wrong. Her movements were shuddering and jerky.  
Her shoulders were moving too quickly for her to be taking deep breaths and her form looked altogether different from her defiant stoicism.  
Realisation dawned on him slowly.  
She was crying.  
As the thought settled within him, he found that it disturbed him greatly.  
This woman, this girl really, had been crushing them for days. He was at his wits end because of how thoroughly she was trouncing them and yet, she was slumped on the ground crying in her cell as though she had no hope left.  
She had been trouncing them, thoroughly and absolutely trouncing them.  
To see her weak and raw like this… it felt intimate and he felt like he was invading her privacy. Like he was violating her.  
He told himself that this was good. She was a prisoner. She had attacked them. She might be relenting now.  
But another voice spoke up.  
She was scared and alone. She was trapped in an unknown place by unknown people who spoke an unknown language. And the horrors she must have seen before her sleep…  
He saw her crying and it pained him.  
This wasn't right.  
Carson had known that all along and he didn't listen.  
They pushed and pushed and pushed and as John departed the room, headed for the cell, he could only hope they hadn’t pushed too far.  
He knew he had to fix it but he had no idea how.  
He should call a meeting in the morning. Everyone would be asleep now but he needed to figure it out with them. Make things right.  
He glanced back at the screen.  
A dark heaviness settled in his gut.  
This wouldn’t wait until morning.  
She couldn’t wait.  
They could make decisions tomorrow but she needed to be reassured.  
Resolvig to at least calm her, John stood and immediately set off for the holdig cells. It was a short walk, couldn’t have been more than 3 minutes, but in that time John ran through a thousand scenarios, worry creating more and more convoluted situations each time.  
Passing the armed guards stationed just outside the holdig rooms, he considered how immediately they had reacted. They never considered she may be anything other than a threat to them. Immediately jumping into hostility as if it were a knee-jerk reaction for them.  
Stepping into the security corridor he was disheartened to hear her sobbing.  
It was quiet but as he grew closer, eventually standing silently before her individual cell.  
“Hey.” he called out to her.  
She didn’t react. Just kept crying softly.  
She looked so small in the cell.  
John shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat.  
He called out to her louder this ttim.  
There was a sharp inhale and she shot to her feet like lightning, pressing her body against the cell wall.  
For a second, she stares like a deer in headlights  
She wiped the tears quickly. A wary, haunted look in her eyes. Like some wild creature.  
What was he doing?  
Why the hell did he walk into her cell?  
Her legs trembled, looking as though they would give out beneath her at any second.  
“Alright, look,” he began, knowing full well that she didn't understand him but hoping his tone would convey his meaning well enough.  
“Habes numquam me.” She uttered, her voice thick and low.  
Her face was solemn and proud as she stood before her captor but her body was swaying lightly, her body weaker than her resolve.  
A grin spread across her face, wicked and defiant. It made the hair stand up on the back of John's neck, but he was not prepared for what she did next.  
With shocking speed, her right forearm shot up to her mouth where her lips pulled back over pearly-white teeth, and as the soft flesh of her wrist met the cracked skin of her dry lips. Her perfect teeth snapped closed, sinking into her with an unblinking ferocity. She ripped her arm away, head snapping back with force. She stared into John's eyes for all of it. Watching the horror grow within him millisecond by millisecond. She spat out the lump of flesh and grinned with perfect blood stained teeth.  
Her arm lifted towards him in silent offering, blood trickling to the floor from her,  
“Habes numquam me.” She chimed, her voice soft and full of glee, “Habes. Numquam. Me.”  
He couldn’t hear her though.  
His senses were fixated upon the precious liquid trickling from her wrist.  
It made him sick, seeing it.  
Sick that he had caused that.  
He was a soldier, a killer, a protector.  
He had seen death in many forms.  
He had seen suffering and he had seen anguish.  
Sometimes, he had been the one to inflict it.  
But that was always against an enemy.  
A person who had gone into an equal fight and had lost.  
This though, this was a young woman who didn’t understand where she was or who these people were. She couldn’t talk to them, couldn't ask for help or ask questions, she was trapped within her own innocent ignorance. And they had imprisoned her. Day after day, they had sent people in to subdue her. Men and women trained to be intimidating and forceful.  
They had backed a scared woman into a corner and now… she was escaping the only way she felt she could.  
It sickened him.  
Sickened him that he could do that.  
He had to help her.  
His hand flew to his ear and tapped the comm.  
“Carson!”  
No response.  
He swore under his breath, darting back into the hallway.  
“Sir?”  
“Get Dr Beckett down here immediately!”  
He didn’t waste time waiting for their response, rushing back to the injured woman.  
She was slumped over but roused as he reentered the room, her lips curling into a weak snarl and her uninjured arm moving heavily uowards from her lap.  
As the woman moved, making to lift her other arm to her stained mouth, John broke from the daze and lunged. He grasped both of her arms in his hands as he dropped unceremoniously to his knees before her.  
“Stop it!” he shouted, grasping her hands to his chest protectively  
The woman glared at him as ferociously as she could muster in her greatly weakened state. Her body pulled away from him but it was halfhearted at best and John refused to let the woman move away.  
He offered an apology, doubtful she would understand, but hopeful she would sense his tone.  
By some miracle, or perhaps just experiencing a moment of fatigue, though John barely cared which, she relaxed slightly.  
With the marked loss in anger and tension, he could see better now that her movements were sluggish and her eyes lost much of their ferocity quickly. The exhaustion she had been fighting for days was suddenly very present and the true extent of her weakness was suddenly clear.  
The woman slumped in his grip  
“Habes numquam me.” she repeated, her voice not much more than a whisper.  
John could feel the warm blood pouring from her wound and making his grip on her slick. His other hand, the one holding her uninjured arm removed itself from her, only to cup the side of her face seconds later. Carefully, but with worryingly little effort on his part, he turned her face to look him in the eye.  
“I’m sorry.” he spoke.  
His sentiment was honest and his tone reflected the anguish and remorse he felt.  
Her eyes shifted, the anger fell away for a second, replaced with curiosity.  
John took it as a good sign and released the woman, pulling away long enough to pull his shirt over his head. Quickly he bundled the material up and pressed it to the wound, hoping to staunch the bleeding.  
He was intent on stopping the blood. There was already so much of it. If she lost anymore, there may not be anything anyone could do.  
Could you give an Ancient a blood transfer from a human?  
He looked at her. Her face was peaceful, her breath shallow, and her eyes fluttering.  
“Hey!”  
He urged her to look at him. To concentrate on him.  
But she barely roused.  
Her eyes were unfocused as she bordered unconsciousness and they barely glanced in his direction.  
“You’re gonna be okay. Just stay with me!”  
She was fading quickly, anything he said was for his own benefit, to settle his panic.  
To comfort himself in what was looking more and more like her dying moments.  
His  
A small pressure was inside his head, like a headache without pain. He had felt it before when dealing with Wraith Queens and telepaths of the same sort and realisation swept over him. She was inside his head  
“Regam?” she spoke, her voice little more than a whisper.  
Her eyes opened slightly, her irises seeking out his face for a second.  
But a frown grew upon her serene face. Whatever she had asked for, she had not seen it.  
Her eyes closed once more.  
“Don't go to sleep. Stay with me.” his tone was begging, he could hear it.  
He had seen this too many times. Had been with too many people as they slipped away in his arms.  
He had been the cause too many times.  
She roused slightly and he felt her in his mind again, reaching deeper this time, an active presence rather than passive.  
It was then that a strange sense of deja vu ran through him, as though he were reliving his present and immediate past.  
As John shuddered, shaking off the feeling, the woman’s hardened features softened into a weak and disbelieving smile.  
“Estis stulte es carues.”  
Her smile was beautiful.  
John found himself in a profound moment that he would remember always.  
When the dangerous monster in their hold smiled and eclipsed all things in the Universe.  
And then, in the next moment, her eyes grew dark, and she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im just so tired. I havent proof read it. I just wanted to post it. Ill edit maybe if there are spelling wrrors that annoy you but i just had be done.


End file.
